Federated Farmers: It's damn lies and alternative facts

"Make no bones about it: the call is for culling cow numbers by 50 per cent by 2050".

The use of the words 'opinion, damn lies and alternative facts', generally combined with some fancy report from an organisation that has just jumped on the bandwagon, is wearing thin.

It used to be 'lies, damn lies, and statistics', now we're fed irrelevant theories partially linked by academic economists engaged by organisations hardly anyone has heard of.
The latest few are around resource exploitation and climate change from two largely irrelevant organisations, the OECD and Globe NZ.

I won't even give the OECD report the time of day, as this is an organisation that has overseen the biggest financial crisis since the great depression and is totally happy with both Europe and the US continuing to print money as a way of getting out of jail. Another irrelevant, hot-air producing organisation.

These ill-informed pot shots masquerading as scientific analysis are dumbed down even further to be quoted as the absolute truth on the TV news.

As for Globe NZ, who are these people?

I went to Google as the source of all truth and no results. I ended up searching the Pommy economists they hired, with our money, and found out the group involves 35 New Zealand MPs.

Trying to find which ones was even harder as I wanted to see if my local MP was part of it.
The report they wrote and the recommendations they put was just a dart-chucking exercise wrapped up as the definitive truth.

The media releases didn't have these MPs jockeying for position front of camera so we might see who they are.

Imagine trying to sort that group out for the photo op. It would be worse than The Bachelor contestants scrapping for a single date.

What do they want? They want the end of the cow. Make no bones about it: the call is for culling cow numbers by 50 per cent by 2050.

They don't want the end of the car, or population growth or jets polluting the atmosphere with CO2, which if you think about it is like throwing fert straight into a waterway.

These ill-informed pot shots masquerading as scientific analysis are dumbed down even further to be quoted as the absolute truth on the TV news.

Add in a few local experts and a couple more economists and suddenly these reports are taken as gospel, and are continually requoted by non-independent academics as the way forward.

So team we have missed the boat here.

We don't need good news stories, we need a couple of dodgy economists, a few alternative facts and a sensational media release and we'll be fine.

And if you find out that your local MP is part of Globe NZ give them an uppercut for being disloyal.